Book Reviews

So Strange my Path: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, by ABRA CAREL(Bloch Publishing Company, 1993). Revised Edition.

Ordained to Be a Jew: A Catholic Priest)s Conversion -to Judaism, byJOHN DAVID SCALONTI (N. 1:: Ktav Publishing House, 1992).

Reviewed by

Gerald F. Murray

One religion's convert may be another's apostate. Because AbrahamCarmel and John Scalamonti were both Roman Catholic priests, theirapostasy from their former faith and their conversion to Torah Judaismwere unusual enough to endow their autobiographies with specialhuman interest for readers. Both books are addressed primarily to Jews,not to Catholics, and both go beyond simple description into actual cri-tique of the faith which they left and into inspirational messages to

members of the faith which they adopted. In this latter effort, one ofthe books is a bit more convincing than the other.

Abraham Carmel's account, first published in 1960 and now reis-sued posthumously with selections from a work that was in progress atthe time of his death, is the older of the two-and the more unusual,because of the more complicated religious trajectory that preceded hisentry into Am Y israel. Born as Kenneth Cox in London to Anglicanparents in 1911, he was religious from his earliest years and reports amysterious sense of affinity with Jews from his youth. Disilusioned withProtestantism in his late teens, he thus looked to Judaism. But theLiberal Rabbi whose lecture was his first contact with Judaism preacheda message so bland and anemic that Carmel walked away disappointed.

He then explored Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam for more solid reli-gious substance. But he eventually made his way back to Christianity,this time to a variant whose clergy (at least back in the 1930's) weresecure and uncompromising in their teaching: Roman Catholicism.Shortly after his conversion, he decided to go the religious distance andentered a seminary. Mter nine years of preparation, he was ordained apriest in 1943, at the age of 31.

His bout with the priesthood was to be brief, however. His insis-

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Book Reviews

tence on a self-chosen ministry to delinquent youth (in addition to nor-mal parish activities) put him on a collsion path with his Bishop and hewas suspended from priestly functions, apparently only a year or twoafter ordination. Though reinstated, the shock and resentment at hissuspension never fully left. The Jewish histories of Christianity which henow began reading led him to question the Catholic faith system itselfand resurrected his attraction to Judaism. He realized that the light-weight liberalism which he had briefly encountered in his teens was notauthentic Judaism. Sometime in the mid 1940's, a few years after ordi-nation, without ever having contacted a rabbi, he made the trulyremarkable decision of leaving the priesthood with the explicit purposeof converting to Judaism. Keeping his reasons to himself, he thusembarked on a lonely journey, exchanging the economically secure andsocially prestigious role of a Catholic priest for an economic and reli-gious limbo where he would be unemployed, with professionally mar-ginal credentials, no longer Christian, but not yet Jewish.

His first economic haven was a job as teacher and headmaster atan Anglican schooL. He eventually was accepted into probationary sta-tus by the Chief Rabbinate of England. An important milestone in hisjourney was the offer of a teaching position at a Jewish boys' school,where he acquired both human contacts and a public role in the Jewishcommunity. Finally, after five years of study and probation (and tenyears after his ordination to the priesthood), he entered the mikve. Hewas to spend the rest of his life educating Jewish children in the human-ities, continuing in England for several years, then in Israel, and finallyin the U.S., at the Yeshivah of Flatbush, where he taught for more thantwo decades before his death. The book is a model of discretion andprivacy. He gives no details about his family life after his conversion.And the themes of Christianity and priesthood gently drop out of sightafter the chapter on his conversion.

Not so the book by John David Scalamonti, another ex-priest whoconverted to Judaism. The book's title itself blazons forth a "Catholicpriest's conversion," hinting of a saga of a spiritual tug-of-war in whicharon kodesh wins out over tabernacle. In actual fact, the author (unlikeCarmel) had neither knowledge of or interest in Judaism before he hadalready left the pnesthood. His fascination with Judaism came while hewas assistant manager of a Silver Springs steakhouse, enamored of aJewish college student (his future wife) who worked for him as a part-time waitress but refused to date gentiles. Scalamonti had abandonedhis chalice well before he had ever heard of a kiddush cup; the title of

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his book must be judged as somewhat sensationalistic and misleading.With this caveat, readers wil nonetheless be treated to the human-

1y fascinating account of a three phase life: Catholicism (7 chapters),disintegration (3 chapters), and Judaism (8 chapters). The Catholicphase covers the author's youth (he was born Catholic), 13 years ofseminary training, and 3 or 4 years of priesthood. The author was tothe Catholic priesthood somewhat what a Reform rabbi is toOrthodoxy. He resented seminary restrictions against smoking, drink-ing, secular magazines, T.V., and movies. Once ordained, he told peni-tents to ignore Church law and practice contraception. In working withyouth, he replaced the Latin Mass with English "Youthquake" Massesbased on guitar music and Beatie songs. As with Carmel, his rift withthe Church occurs as his superiors remove him from his first assign-ment: he insisted on working with juvenile drug addicts without propertraining. They send him to D.C. to finance a graduate degree in coun-seling as a condition of further youth work. But unhappy at his studies(he describes lonely afternoons downing beers in a D.C. pizza parlor),he requests immediate reinstatement in a youth ministry. When told toobey or leave, he opts for the latter. He lands a job as a waiter (letting asympathetic job-interviewer know that he was a jobless ex-priest) andleaves both priesthood and Catholicism.

Ktav's dust jacket embellshes this tawdry finale as follows: "Afer18 years, disenchanted with many aspects of the priesthood andCatholic doctrine. . . he left the Church." (In fact he had been a priestfor only 4 years, not 18.) His conflicts with authority did engender tur-moil and religious doubts (as was the case with Carmel). But he leftwhen his superiors' refused his explicit request to be reinstated as apriest in a youth ministry, a strange request from someone disenchantedwith the priesthood.

The Jewish phase of his life begins when Scalamonti, now assistantmanager of the steakhouse, meets Diane. Curious about his priesthoodand feeling sorry for him (he shared his expriesthood with employers,employees, and colleagues) she goes out with him once, refusing to eatcooked food in a restaurant, but declines his requests for other datesbecause of her religion. Frequent chats, however, generate attachment;and his ex-priesthood, which had landed him his first job and his firstdate, lands him an invitation to a Jewish home, where Diane's polite par-ents explore his past and invite this unusual person back for a Shabbat.

Scalamonti reports that it was the glow of those first Shabbat can-dles in Diane's house that "opened (his) mind and heart" to Judaism.

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Though not thriled at his announcement of an interest in conversion,Diane's parents contacted one rabbi (a relative), who refused to see himand told them to throw him out of the house. They contacted a second

one, who was described as Orthodox (p. 135), but who was moreaccommodating. Scalamonti's preparation and probation lasted"months" (Carmel's had lasted five years); and he was converted despitethe fact (reported on p. 157) that for some time after conversion he hadto continue working on Shabbat. The petulant anger against his superi-ors and the Church which dominate the early chapters disappears,replaced by moving accounts of his engagement to Diane, his reconcila-tion with his own family, his greeting of Diane under the hupa, and thecreation of a family with four children during 19 years of marriage.

A reviewer of such personal religious autobiographies should per-haps restrict himself to a description and a mazal tov to the authors forcourageous decisions. But the books raise several issues calling for com-ment. On one matter both books ring true; on another both ring shal-low (at least to this reviewer, who had also spent seven years in aCatholic religious order and learned, only later at age 42, of his halakhicstatus as a Jew).

Both books are convincing in their portrayal of the suspicions,unfriendliness, and/or outright hostility often shown toward converts toJudaism by Jews themselves. Carmel's description of his acceptance intoprobationary status chils the reader with its lonely coldness, as does hisaccount of solitude in the circumcision ritual, carried out by a mahel in anon-Jewish nursing home, of his being left alone surrounded by "puz-zled non-Jews," and of his subsequent efforts to make reluctant friendsin the very closed Orthodox Jewish community of pre-war London.

Scalamonti's tale is a similar chronicle of suspicion and even hostil-ity which he encountered from born Jews, their warnings to Diane thathe would go back to his old religion or that his Catholic parents wouldtry to secretly baptize his children in the kitchen sink. In her appendixto the book, his wife Diane recounts warnings from Jews not to marry a"spaghetti bender," that her offspring would be "half-breeds."Particularly humorous was Jewish reaction to his very un - Jewish sur-name. Scalamonti's future inlaws, embarrassed, would present him as"David Cohen." Other Jewish friends-offspring, I suspect, of Jewswho in another time Anglicized their names-urged him now to changehis name to a Jewish one. Scalamonti had the character to announcethat his name was not Cohen and that he would not Judaize it for any-body. In short, the former priestly status of the authors had no apparent

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mitigating (or exacerbating) impact on the less-than-friendly treatmentthat is often accorded to converts to Judaism. On this matter bothbooks ring true.

When they turn to presenting their former religion to a Jewish audi-ence, however, ths reviewer found both books inaccurate and mislead-ing. Some of Scalamonti's critiques of the Church are almost embarrass-ing in their siliness. For example, his heartless superiors refused to turnover to him a wing of their seminary for rehabilitating the drug addictshe wished to work with. He criticizes his "brothers in Christ"-the sar-castic quotation marks are his-who are cold to him in his frequents visitsback to the seminary after his conversion. The intent of such whinyplaints is unclear; what reaction would he expect if, say, an ex-rabbishowed up at his former yeshiva with baptismal certificate and crucifix inhand? Carmel's really angry passages are more Jewish in their content,directed toward the arrogance of the Jewish secular establishment.

But it is in the realm of doctrine that Jewish readers concernedwith accuracy should beware of caricatures posing as "insider descrip-tions." Carmel mocks himself for having once believed in the "hypnoticcharm" of Catholicism's "fairyland", where thoughtless people are pro-vided a guaranteed "ticket to the gates of Paradise"-a snide misrepre-

sentation of Catholic eschatology. His aspersions on the intelligenceand/or mental health of Jews who convert to Catholicism (p. 205)would, if phrased by non-Jews about converts to Judaism, be dismissed

as anti-Semitic. In a similar tone of sectarian one-upmanship, Scala~

monti's praise of his chosen new faith takes the form of contrastivepoint-by-point putdowns of his old. Judaism views the world as good,Christianity sees it as a threat to salvation. Jewish marriage has meaningapart from children; Catholics marry primarily to produce children.Judaism sanctifies the world; Christianity rejects the world. Yom Kippurfasting makes Catholic fasting look like a banquet. And-unlikeCatholicism-Judaism does not criticize other faiths ( !).

In one of his us-versus-them passages-"Jewish wine symbolizes

joy, but Catholic wine symbolizes blood"-Scalamonti actually displaysProtestant theology to Jewish customers under the label of Catholic doc-trine. (It is Protestants who downgraded the contents of the chalice to a"symboL.") A Jewish audience will neither know nor care that they arebeing fed shatnez Catholicism (any more than Christian audiences catchthe Judaic errors of an apostate ex-rabbi on their own lecture circuit). Butthey should note that Scalamonti promotes a variant of Judaism asProtestantized as his dimly remembered Catholicism. For example,

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though Catholics need teachers and other intermediaries, in Judaism Godspeaks directly to me-the-Jew. All God's children are equal; Maimonides'13 principles are just one Jew's view (p. 129)-an egalitarian insight thatwould fly in a Unitarian chapel but not in many yeshivot. In short, theirpriestly background notwthstanding, neither author is a reliable sourcefor Jewish readers interested in empirically sound Jewish/Catholic com-parisons. In contrast, readers who resonate to loyalist lehavdil put-downsof the opposition will find much to approve of in both books.

In terms of their comparative value to Jewish readers, the Carmelvolume has a more solid and probably more useful substantive message,whereas the Scalamonti volume is clearly peppered with more catchyhuman-interest glitter. Carmel's major message is the urgent need tobuild and support centers of bonafide Jewish education. It is a clear, con-sistent, pragmatic message that he put into practice for several decades asa teacher of Jewish children. That is, he put his past life and former reli-gion once and for all behind him and chose a profession directly linkedto his religious convictions. Scalamonti, in contrast, appears to be stil

entrapped in a batte (or show-and-tell game) with his former priesthood.His main message-"Judaism is better than Catholicism, and I shouldknow because I was a priest"-is passionately asserted and reasserted, butof marginal relevance in an age whose secular Jews are attracted to pep-peroni pizza and cheeseburgers, not to consecrated hosts.

Two questions therefore emerge: why was Scalamonti's book writ-ten, and why is there a potential Jewish audience for it? In the book'sfinal paragraph, his wife, Diane, provides an important insight into thefirst question: John is not satisfied "simply to be a good Jewish husbandand father. . . (He) feels strongly the need to meet with Jewish groupsand relate to them his experience." A former clergyman's need for a

religious podium is perfectly understandable, and Scalamonti has founda niche. The question then becomes: why is there a market in Jewishlecture halls and bookstores for such an account? The answer is to befound, not in the author's status as a convert, but in the lingering mys-

tique surrounding the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church,whose weaknesses Scalamonti now parades before curious audiences.This mystique is so strong among certain sectors of the Jewish commu ~

nity that, though the author was a professional priest for fewer than

four years, he has already enjoyed a twenty-year career on the Jewishlecture circuit as a professional ex-priest, a career that should sproutwings with the publication of this, his first book.

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Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State by YESHAYAHULEffOWITZ (Harvard University Press, 1992).

Reviewed byDaniel Rohrlich

Some years ago, the author of Judaism, Human Values, and the JewishState lectured at Tel-Aviv University on the question, "Is Israel aDemocracy?" The large hall, located on the ground floor of the Gilmanbuilding, was full before the lecture began, with the aisles clogged andthe crowd still growing. Through large windows lining the lecture hall,on the right and left, students clambered in; inside, where the floor

descends towards the front, the security staff had its hands full trying tokeep people from dropping onto the audience below. I myself was luckyto find a seat on a windowsil near the back.

The focus of this attention was Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Israelibiochemist, neurophysiologist, editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica,

Maimonides scholar, lecturer in philosophy, and one of Israel's mostgifted teachers. That year, turning 90, he was offered-and declined,after a storm of controversy-the Israel Prize. Over five decades, inessays, books, and lectures, on radio and on television, Leibowitz raised

and defined essential questions about the fate of the Jewish people andof the State of IsraeL. Wil the Jewish people survive as the authenticcontinuation of three thousand years of history? Or wil modern andancient Israel be linked in name only, much like modern and ancientGreece? Leibowitz's influence on the Israeli public is evinced not somuch by adherents who adopt his positions as by opponents who adopthis terms. Judaism) Human Values, and the Jewish State is not the firstbook by Leibowitz to appear in English, but it is the first representativeselection of his work. The translation also comes closest to Leibowitz'sgraceful and exact Hebrew.

Leibowitz lives at the center of controversy. In an essay first pub-lished in 1968 and reprinted in various Israeli newspapers (and here asChapter 21), Leibowitz wrote:

Rule over the occupied territories would have social repercussions.Afer a few years there would be no Jewish workers or Jewish farmers.

The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administra-tors, inspectors, offcials, and police-mainly secret police. A stateruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 millon foreigners would neces-

sarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for educa-

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rion, free speech, and democratic institutions. The corruption charac-teristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of IsraeL.The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the onehand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other.

This warning was scorned in 1968; but today it hits home.Leibowitz never hesitates to speak his mind, reaping opposition andattention in proportion. But there was more noise than light in thetempest over his award of the Israel Prize, and the audience that packedhis lecture "Is Israel a Democracy?" came to hear only part of his mes-sage. For above all, Leibowitz is a man of faith who thinks deeply aboutfaith. He is a true follower of Maimonides, a man of the highest intel-lect who seeks a rational way to faith. For although faith cannot berationalized, it need not be irrational. The essays in this book are full ofthe encounter of faith and reason; and properly so, for this encounter isat the core of Leibowitz's thought.

Faith has a bad name. Science, the product of human reason, dealtit a blow from which it has never recovered. Jewish education seems notto have met this challenge. Much of what it offers is intellectuallyembarrassing to minds that are learning how the world really works.Does Judaism mean believing five impossible things before breakfastevery morning? If so, how can we take it seriously? If not, what is it?Faith has a bad name, and-it seems-only a scientist can make faithrespectable again. There is no shortage of fundamentalists, or of mystics

who declare that science and Torah are one; but their "science" is asham. A very different figure was the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,born in the same year as Leibowitz. He studied mathematics, physical

sciences, philosophy, and logic at the University of Berlin. The twoyoung scholars must have sat in some of the same lectures, though theynever met there. Leibowitz held R. Soloveitchik in unique high regardamong contemporary rabbis, and their approaches to halakha are veryclose. But R. Soloveitchik-who appreciated science and discussedanalogies between mathematics and halakha-was a more modest per-sonality. He did not stare modernity in the face the way Leibowitz does.

Where does a rational critique of faith begin? The great mathemati-cal physicist Pierre Simon de Laplace said of God, "I have no need ofthat hypothesis!)) But a critique of faith cannot begin by denying God. Itcan, however, deny conceptions of God, and Leibowitz does so

absolutely. God is beyond conception; we know Him only in that werealize that we do not know. For some people, Leibowitz's critique offaith seems negative, even destructive. Yet Leibowitz is no more destruc-

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rive than the comment by Rashi which he cites: "All the prophets lookedthrough a dark glass-and thought they saw Him; Moses looked

through a clear glass-and knew that he did not see His face."We cannot have a conception of God, but we can have a concep-

tion of faith. But very often, a conception of faith presupposes a con-ception of God. For example, one may observe the mitzvot out of.desire for reward, or fear of punishment. Such a faith presumes thatGod functions as a benign or severe parent. That is, God plays a role inour world. But a transcendent God is beyond our world. If we acceptthat God is beyond conception, then faith cannot be tied to reward orpunishment. Thus, in Leibowitz's critique, faith in God must be uncon-ditional: faith lishma. The term lishma means, literally, for that veryend, without ulterior motives. Pirkei Avot teaches us to serve ourMaster without expecting reward. The morning prayers express thewish that we may come to study the Torah lishma. Maimonides, in hiscommentary on the Mishna (Tractate Sanhedrin) explains the term inan extended metaphor: a child studies for the sake of rewards, such ascandy; an older child looks down on candy but desires fine clothes; atlater ages, money is the reward; and money, in turn, yields to honor andprestige. All these, according to Maimonides, are what the Sages callednot lishma, and they all miss the mark. The study of Torah is itself thereward, "for truth has no purpose but to know it; the mitzvot are truthand thus their purpose is to do them."

A conception of God as beneficent may inspire a self-serving faiththat expects to be rewarded. The faith of Maimonides, on the otherhand, is heroic, it makes demands on us, not on God. The demands arethe mitzvot. The mitzvot do not originate in our desires. By acceptingthe mitzvot, we transcend our desires. "Who is a hero?" asks PirkeiAvot, and answers, "One who conquers desire." Maimonides providesreasons for the mitzvot, but their ultimate reason is transcendent. Theyare inherently paradoxical: they refer to what we do in the world, butthey aim beyond this world. For nothing in the world is God; theessence of idolatry is to identity God with anything in the world.Accepting the mitzvot makes a statement about the ultimate value ofthe world; indeed, we may say that a Jew who accepts the mitzvot is theultimate snob, for nothing in the world is good enough for him.

Leibowitz points to the opening words of the halakhic code

Shulhan Arukh: "Gird strength like a lion and arise at morning to servethe Creator." In this exhortation, he sees a hint that the mitzvot maydemand more than human effort. Perhaps the ilitzvot are beyond us.Nevertheless, our effort to live by them has value, and faith demands

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this effort-all our heart, all our soul, and all our might. This faith does

not arise from knowing. What we know we cannot unknow, but faith isalways a choice. "Faith is a decision and not a conclusion," as he puts it.

Chapter 13, "Religion and Science in the Middle Ages and in theModern Era," confronts Judaism and science directly. Judaism has alwayshad a normative aspect, but today, when information belongs to science,this aspect appears as the essence of Judaism. The Torah is normative,not informative: it sets before us the task of serving God through Hismitzvot. "Does religion supply information? Medieval man took this forgranted, since he did not distinguish between information and meaning.. . . Today we extract meaningless information from science and do nothave to attribute cognitive content to religious thought." As the physi-

cist Stephen Weinberg wrote, "The more the universe seems compre-hensible, the more it also seems pointless." For science does not supplymeaning, just as Judaism does not supply facts. But for many religiousJews, the second part of the statement is as difficult to accept as the firstpart is easy. If the Torah is not factually true, then why keep the mitzvot?The question confuses two senses of the word 'belief'; belief as faith thatneither requires nor is subject to facts, and belief as conviction based onfacts. There is a children's story about an elephant with enormous ears."You can fly just by flapping your ears," said a mouse, but the elephantdidn't believe him. Finally, the mouse said, "Here is a magic feather. Itwil make you fly as long as I ride on your head and hold it." He thusconvinced the elephant, and off they went. "Your magic feather is won-derful," shouted the elephant to the mouse as they flew. The mouseshouted back, "What magic feather? I threw it away!" To insist on thefactual truth of the Torah is to turn it into a magic feather.

For two centuries, Judaism has been in crisis. Assimilation haseroded the faith that formerly defined the Jewish people. Today, the

vast majority of Jews are secular. Faith no longer defines the Jewishpeople, and nothing has taken its place. Leibowitz does not prescribe acure. But in these essays, he confronts the condition and points to somemeasures that would promote a recovery. One of these, as we have seen,would be to disentangle the roles of religion and science. Judaism doesnot need miracles. A second measure concerns the role of religion inthe State of IsraeL. Israel is the natural context in which to resolve theidentity crisis of the Jewish people. But the official Rabbinate is abranch of the Israeli government. This arrangement neutralizes religionas a social force and saps its vitality, as Chapter 16 describes.

A third measure would be to drive out Judaism's sacred cows,which include the "holiness" of the Jewish people and of the land of

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Israel; for there is no holiness apart from God. This is the urgent mes-sage of an outstanding essay, "Afer Kibiyeh" (Chapter 17). In 1953,after murderous attacks on Jews by Arabs infiltrating from Samaria, theIsraeli army attacked the Arab town of Kibiyeh there. The soldiers killedfift civilians and levelled forty houses. How could Israeli soldiers com-mit such an atrocity, Leibowitz asks, and then points to the ideology per-vading their education: the State of Israel as the supreme value.

Religious notions, torn from their context, have been sewn into this sec-ular ideology. As a Palestinian woman said to me, "An Israeli is someonewho doesn't believe in God, but believes God gave him this land." Thisideology breached the boundary between the sacred and the profane,and justified all actions. In pointing to this breach, Leibowitz breathesnew life into the prohibition against taking the Lord's name in vain.

Finally, Judaism needs vigorous development of the halakha torespond to our changing world. Bold halakhic innovation, in responseto the destruction of the Second Temple and ensuing exile, enabled

Judaism to survive when its world fell apart. Leibowitz refers to theexile then and the return now as mirror-image crises. At that time, thechallenge was to live without a Jewish state; now, the challenge is to livewith one. There are other challenges: how does the halakha deal withthe Jewish people when the vast majority of Jews do not recognize itsauthority? How does it define our relations with the Gentile worldwhen it is no longer feasible (let alone desirable) to cut off from it?How does it respond to women in social roles never imagined twothousand years ago? These questions must be addressed by those whoaccept the halakha as binding. In Israel, unfortunately, few religiousinstitutions have such a broad vision.

Readers of this book wil appreciate Leibowitz's honesty and

courage, and.his clear, direct language. They will miss something of thekind, inspiring gentleman behind the book. Leibowitz responds to asteady stream of visitors, listening, questioning, and answering. On oneoccasion, a very intelligent woman came to him to describe how shehad recently become religious. Her young boy had fallen ill and thedoctors had given up on him. She turned to prayer, and the boy recov-ered. "I found faith," she told Leibowitz, "when, by the grace of God,the boy recovered." Leibowitz (who has lost two sons to ilness) saidgently, "I know a woman who had a sick boy, and by the grace of God,the boy died." The woman thought and replied, "I have to thank you,Prof. Leibowitz, for opening my eye to what faith really means." This istranscendent faith, faith lishma.

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Metaphysical Drift: Love and Judaism, by JEROME ECKSTEIN (NewYork: Peter Lang, 1991).

Reviewed by

Walter S. Wurzburger

Ever since Wiliam James distinguished between tender-minded andtough-minded philosophers, it has been axiomatic that psychologicalfactors exert an enormous influence upon the formation of philosophi-cal beliefs. Jerome Eckstein's Metaphysical Drift: Love and Judaism rep-resents an interesting blend of autobiography and philosophy, docu-menting how unsatisfied psychological needs prompted a distinguishedphilosopher and chairman of Judaic Studies at the State University ofNew York to become so disenchanted with his religious faith that heeven refused to accompany his father to Yom Kippur services.

Although Professor Eckstein rejects theistic belief, he retains a softspot for "Modern Orthodoxy." He is troubled by the ascendancy of"right wing" elements who reject any form of accommodation withmodernity. His residual admiration for the type of Orthodoxy which heprofessed and practiced in his youth calls to mind a delightful storyabout David Ben Gurion. In a conversation with the late Rabbi JosephH. Lookstein, Ben GurIon expressed his dismay over the Reconstruc-tionist siddur of Mordecai Kaplan. When questioned by Rabbi Look-stein why it mattered to him as an avowed secularist, Ben Gurionreplied: "If I daven, I want to daven from a regular siddur, and when Icome to shul and I cannot find Ashrei, I get terribly angry." Similarly,Professor Eckstein, with all his disdain for traditional religion, is dis-mayed that "liberal Orthodoxy" has been displaced by the resurgenceof right-wing Orthodoxy.

The author claims that the challenge to belief in an omnipotentand benevolent God that was posed by the Holocaust was a major fac-tor in his alienation from Orthodox Judaism. But these intellectual dif-ficulties were in all probability rationalizations rather than reasons. Theproblem of evil is by no means a novel problem. Professor Plantinga hasconclusively shown that unless a religious faith is based upon the argu-ment from design, the problem of evil can simply be disposed of byarguing that the human mind cannot grasp why a particular evil is nec-essary from the divine perspective.

The real cause for Eckstein's estrangement from tradition is nottheological but psychologicaL. He blames the ethos of Orthodox

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Judaism for the emotional deprivation he suffered and which wasresponsible for his psychological problems which necessitated therapy.He. contends that his failure to receive unconditional love was due tothe Jewish religious ideal that "all your actions shall be performed forthe sake of God." Judaism, in his opinion, by virtue of this theo-centricorientation, leaves no room for intraestedness (a term coined by him todenote activities and attitudes which are not goal-oriented), because"intraestedness which cannot be commanded without absurdity, isdirectly justified by our humanity, not by God."

Eckstein's thesis is highly debatable. Martin Buber has shown thatthe demand "to love God with all one's heart, all one's soul and allone's might" is not exclusive but all-inclusive. Far from inhibitingintraested love for others, love of God engenders unconditional love ofone's fellow human being.

I am also puzzled by Eckstein's assertion that "Maimonides'intraestedness has roots in the naturalistic terms of ancient Greek phi-losophy." Apparently, he ignored the fact that in Hilkhot Teshuva,

intraested love of God is described as a "virtue that the Holy One,Blessed be He, has communicated to us through Moses, as it is said,'Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God.' " Even more startling is the claimthat there is no rabbinic text which would support the Maimonideanideal of intraested love. It must have escaped Professor Eckstein that theideal of intraested love of God was not invented by Maimonides, but isalready formulated in Sifre (Ekev,48).

In his discussion of the philosophy of the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B.Soloveitichik z.ts.l., Eckstein refers to discrepancies between the Rav'searlier and later writings. He, however, failed to take into considerationwhat I pointed out in my article, "The Maimonidean Matrix of RavSoloveitchik's Two-Tiered Ethics" (From the Sound Of Many Voices,edited by Jonathan V. Plaut, Toronto, 1982, pp.172-183), thatHalakhic Man was not intended as a systematic exposition of the Rav'sreligious philosophy, but as a typology, characterizing merely one facetof the religious personality. As a matter of fact, his essay, uBikashtem

miSham, although published many decades afterwards, was alreadycompleted shortly after the appearance of Halakhic Man. One cannotdo justice to the Rav's thought without recognizing the dialectical ten-sion between the two works. Both "The Lonely Man of Faith" and his"Ethics of Majesty and Humility" deal with this dialectical tensionwhich is inherent in human nature.

Despite its flaws, Metaphysical Drif abounds with keen insightsand reveals a thorough grasp of both classical and modern Jewish

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sources. One cannot suppress the hope that just as R. Yohananexpressed to Resh Lakish the wish, "Yeyasher heilekh le)Oraita," theauthor will yet favor us with another volume in which he will celebratehis return to halakhic Judaism.

REVIEWERS IN THIS ISSUE:

GERAD J. MURRY is Professor of Anthropology atthe University of Florida in Gainesvile.

DANIEL ROHRLICH teaches at Tel Aviv University'sSchool of Physics and Astronomy.

WALTERS. WURZBURGER is Editor Emeritus of Tradition.

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